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by TheCapn 1808 days ago
I'd say you have to be more specific on that.

I broke my leg once playing paintball, my personal time hobbies impacted my performance during work hours for a couple months due to mobility issues + appointment followups. Is it in my employer's purview to tell me I can't play sports?

2 comments

Under some circumstances, yes, under most, no.

Actors will sometimes have clauses which prevent them from doing dangerous stuff they like to do (skiing, race car driving) while they're shooting a film. An actor becoming unavailable is very expensive.

For any given worker, losing their contribution costs more than just their share. There's always a certain amount of working around the gap in the roster. But that's priced-in, if you will: people go on vacation, take sick leave, parental leave, and they quit outright.

So I don't consider it ethical for employers to add that sort of clause under normal circumstances, as indeed, they don't tend to. I do consider it ethical in specific circumstances, however, such as the one I just described.

Sometimes. A previous employer of mine fired a colleague for breaking his leg in a football game. Well, actually, they fired him for calling in sick with a supposed fever and going off to play football. The broken leg was just a smoking gun.